The Sorcerer's Ascension (The Sorcerer's Path)

by Brock Deskins

  The man Azerick had followed and the big man he was with grabbed the inebriated oaf by the collar, hauled him up, and pushed him backwards into the bar.

  “Watch where you’re going, you big dumb bastard!” the guildsman cursed as he shoved the drunken man toward the bar.

  “Your rat-faced friend needs to check his overgrown feet! I ought ‘a break his skull for that!” The clumsy man squinted at the guild man and recognition dawned on his face. “Oh, it’s you, Merik. I thought I smelled Daedric's men. Either that or someone lost control of their bowels in here.”

  Azerick watched this confrontation with great interest and finally learned the name to put with the face of his quarry.

  “You had best watch your tongue, dog, lest my friends and I remove it for you,” Merik threatened as the weasel-faced man reached inside his short coat with an evil grin of anticipated violence.

  “Best you remember where you’re at, Merik. This is Night Raven territory and don’t forget it, or we’ll be feeding your tongues to the dogs,” the large drunk exclaimed.

  Merik gave an imperceptible signal to his henchmen. Quick as a striking snake, or maybe a mongoose, the weasel-faced man pulled a needle-sharp stiletto from the inside of his coat and stabbed the drunken man in the back of his knee. Merik’s broken-nosed bruiser whipped his cudgel into the rival guildsman's gut and sent him to the floor gasping for air.

  Quick as that, the fight was over. The tavern patrons went back to their drinks and conversations as if this was a normal occurrence, which it likely was, Azerick figured.

  Merik grabbed the fallen man by his greasy hair and glared down into his face. “Nothing lasts forever, fat man, and Daedric’s Demons are looking to expand its territory. Night Raven is weak and ripe for the plucking. You tell that popinjay you call a guild leader that it might be a good time for him to pull up stakes and move on out while he still has the option,” Merik hissed.

  Merik threw the man’s head down and he and his cronies walked out of the tavern. Azerick waited a few moments before following them out into the night. He spied them walking up the street just before they disappeared into the night’s gloomy darkness and carefully resumed his stealthy pursuit.

  Azerick followed the trio just close enough to keep them in sight. When they turned a corner, he lost sight of them for only a few moments and he increased his pace so he would not lose them down more than one street at any time. The small group had just turned another corner so Azerick had to quicken his pace once again so as not to lose sight of them long enough to allow them to disappear around a second corner and risk completely losing his prey.

  As he peered around the corner of the building, he feared for a moment that he had lost them anyway until he saw the back of the large man disappear into a three-story structure about halfway down the far side of the street.

  Azerick examined the building as best he could from where he was at, not daring to draw any closer. Two men guarded the door that Merik and the others had entered and kept a vigilant eye on the street traffic. He only had a moment to study the men and the building when he felt the sharp edge of a knife press against his throat. Azerick immediately held his breath and froze in place.

  “What are you looking at, boy?” a voice hissed in his ear.

  The knife pulled away from his throat as a hand grabbed the front of his shirt and pressed him hard into the side of the building he had been using as cover. The knife instantly reappeared, its point pricking the soft flesh under his chin.

  “Answer me, boy, and you best answer good, or I’m going to be giving you the first and last shave you’ll ever get. Who are you, and why were you following us?”

  Azerick stared into the beady eyes of the weasel-faced man that had been with Merik. He quickly realized his mistake. He saw the back of the big man and just assumed that the other two had preceded him through the door. He thought quickly, and it was a good thing he was better at thinking fast than he was at shadowing guild thieves.

  “Sir, I’m just a street rat, but I’m pretty good. At least I thought I was. I was just looking for someone to talk to about joining the thieves’ guild, but I didn’t know who to talk to. That’s what I was doing in the tavern. I knew that Night Raven men hung out there, but when I saw how you had handled that big oaf, I knew I wanted to talk to your guild instead,” Azerick stammered out, only half acting the part of a terrified boy.

  The weasel-eyed man cuffed Azerick on the side of his head. “Stupid boy, lucky for you, Daedric’s Demons numbers are growing and expanding its territory. At least you're smart enough to see that and come to us first.”

  The thief took the knife out from under Azerick’s chin and released the front of his shirt. “We’re always looking for new men, especially young men that can be trained proper and have quick hands. Convince me that it's in my house's best interest to let you live, and maybe even take you in, instead of making you bleed out right here for spying.”

  “I have your purse, sir,” Azerick said as he lifted his hand, a small coin pouch dangling from his nimble fingers.

  The weasel’s face split into a grin and let out a wheezing sound that must have passed for his laugh.

  “Well ain’t you a clever lad and you can work under pressure. I think we may have a use for you after all. Come back during the day, tell whoever is at the door that you’re a new recruit, and that Slyde sent you.”

  “Yes, sir, I will! Thank you, sir.”

  As Slyde turned and stalked away, Azerick sprinted down the street as fast as his legs would carry him. He ran clear across the common quarter, into the squatter’s district, and all the way to the hidden entrance to his lair under the old tannery. He easily avoided his own traps, even moving as fast as he was, and dropped down into a pile of pillows he used as a chair. Azerick lay on his back puffing like a blacksmith’s bellows and wiped at the sweat pouring down his face.

  Now that he knew who and where, the only question that remained was how. Why was not important. He knew the why. His adoptive family was murdered because of greed and as an example to the other freelance thieves within the city that did actually manage to profit from their ventures.

  He would burn them. He would burn theirs like they burned his. Azerick thought and thought, wracking his brain for ways to accomplish his grisly revenge. He searched through every shred of knowledge it contained. He pulled his history and alchemic books from their place on the shelf and scoured through them, looking for historical precedents and forgotten formulas. He found several references of regicides using poisons, assassins, and even arson and found several alchemic formulas for those poisons and for creating a type of fire that stuck like honey to whatever it was cast upon, even water.

  It would take several gold crowns to purchase the necessary ingredients to create what he needed, but he only had a few silver swords. The only crowns he had even seen was from old Ewen’s purse, which he had given to Jon, and a few more from the jewelry he had stolen, but that was spent on getting his home livable and tuck away a bit of food.

  He would have to make a score and a good one at that. He would buy only the ingredients, not the services, to mix the components. That alone saved an enormous amount gold. But the components themselves would be expensive, and he would have to buy the equipment to mix them. Mortar and pestle, retort, scales, beakers, flasks, condensers, and several other glass items would come at a significant cost.

  Azerick now had the method of his vengeance formulated; now he must think on how to finance his operation. The estimated costs of his revenge were staggering and could keep him in comfort for a year or more, but he would place no limit on the price of justice.

  He would have to pull a caper in the noble's quarter or at least the wealthier merchant's quarter to have even a hope of making enough gold in one heist to purchase everything he needed. He would have to hit a manor house, something he had not done before due to the extreme risk of guards or the Watch catching him.

  The truly wealthy had pr
ivate guards, high fences, and quality locks. The Watch was also far more likely to pursue anyone who robbed from the city’s elite. The Watch’s diligence was easy to buy for those who had coin, and the more they had the harder the Watch worked.

  Azerick would also have to invest his last few coins to outfit himself with dark clothes, a slim length of metal to lift latches, light rope, and material to craft some lock picking tools.

  With his plan laid out in his head, he drifted off to sleep until morning. When he awoke, Azerick wished once again that he had the water clock from his old study. That was the one problem with his subterranean dwelling; he had no idea when the sun rose or set without walking down the hall, lifting the trap door to one of the surface exits, and peering outside. Perhaps he would have enough left over to buy a decent hourglass he mused as he rolled off his pillows where he had fallen asleep without even undressing.

  Azerick made his way to the merchant district early that morning as an actual customer instead of a thief. Most of the things he needed would be easier to buy than filch, so a semi-honest young man was what he was this morning.

  The first place he went was to a clothing merchant. He needed dark colors, which could be expensive. Many people had the mistaken idea that if a person wanted to blend in with the dark of night they had to camouflage themselves in black clothing. However, shades of grey made up the night, not black. A solid black outfit would make a solid black, man-shaped silhouette that stood out in the night almost as obvious as one garbed in white would.

  Azerick put together an outfit a varying dark colors that would help break up the pattern of his form. He bought a shirt of forest green, a vest and soft boots of charcoal grey, and trousers of an olive-drab color. The clothes were slightly expensive and were of a quality that he hoped would be able to convince any watchman that may stop him of the legitimacy of his business within the district of the wealthy.

  He purchased a dark brown bag that he could sling over his shoulders into which he placed his newly purchased clothing. He was also able to stuff a few pairs of socks and smallclothes into the hidden pockets of his short cloak while the proprietor wrapped his purchase in paper and tied it closed with cord. He found that merchants did not watch you nearly as closely if you actually bought things. He would have to keep this in mind for the future.

  Azerick made his way to a blacksmith’s shop next. The heat from the forges was a physical force you could almost cut with a knife even in the front of the shop furthest away from the fires. A thick-armed, burly man greeted him but eyed him warily as he approached.

  “What can I do you for today, boy?”

  Azerick strode confidently toward the counter. “I have need of a pry bar and a thin, flexible length of metal.”

  “What need have you of a pry bar, lad? I run an honest business and I’ll not knowingly sell my tools for any nefarious schemes,” the smith stated eying Azerick even more closely.

  Azerick put on his most honest face. “I assure you, good sir, my needs are not nefarious. At least I assume that word you used means bad of some sort, so no, not for anything like that. I work on the docks and was prying open a crate that had just come in when the pry bar slipped from betwixt the lid and base, flew from my hands, and as luck would have it, fell right into the bay. My foreman said I could either retrieve what I lost or buy him a new one. Since I’m not much of a swimmer, here I am. He also bid me to get him the other piece of metal, but for what reasons he didn’t bother to share with the like of me. But he told me I had best come back with both or not come back at all,” Azerick explained with a perfectly straight face and honest look in eyes.

  “All right, boy, don’t fret. I’m sure I can get you what you need.”

  Azerick followed the smith back to a room closer to the forges but not all the way into the forge room. He could hear metal being beaten by hammers, the huffing of bellows, and the occasional hiss of steam as metal was plunged into water or oil to temper the steel. He assumed the master smith trained the apprentices and journeymen who did much of the actual work.

  The smith walked over to several wooden barrels that contained a variety of metal tools and implements. While the man dug about in one, Azerick looked around and saw a barrel that contained what appeared to be scrap pieces of metal. He spied a few slender rods and stiff wire that he might be able to fashion into acceptable lock picks and probes and deftly slipped them into his pocket. The smith came up with an exclamation of triumph at the third barrel through which he had rummaged.

  “Here they are. I got a few in here so tell me how long a one you need.”

  Azerick picked one that was a little longer than his forearm and curved at one end. A few minutes later, the smith came up with a thin but flexible piece of tempered metal that would suit Azerick’s needs just fine. He thanked the blacksmith as he paid for the two items and went on his way to continue his shopping.

  His next stop took him to the docks to purchase some rope in case he needed to work from the rooftops. He entered the shop and the sight of yards upon yards of various types and thicknesses of rope, canvas for sails, block and tackles, nets, and an assortment of other sailing gear greeted him.

  “Welcome to Peg’s Sailing Emporium,” the gruff voice of an old sea dog.

  Azerick looked across the room at a grizzled old man sitting behind a long counter that ran nearly the entire length of the left wall of the store.

  “What can old Peg do for you today, young sir?”

  “Good morn to you, Mister Peg. I am in need of some rope, which it seems you have quite an abundance of and made of far more types of materials than I had thought existed. It would seem that the art of simple rope construction is far more complex than I imagined,” Azerick answered while he looked at the numerous, large spools of rope.

  “Aye, that it is, lad. Rope makin’ is a far greater challenge than folk realize. What you want all depends on what you need it for and how much coin you’re willing to spend to get it. What exactly do you need it for? You don’t have the look of a sailing lad. Too pasty-faced for that if I might be so bold to say.”

  “No sir, definitely not a sailor, at least not for a couple years now. I’m apprenticing as a chimney sweep, but the master said I had to get my own rope and harness since I came up short on coin to pay for my apprenticeship.”

  Peg’s face suddenly lost a bit of its former jovialness. "Hm, lackin’ for coin is not a thing an honest proprietor like myself wants to hear ya know, but I’ll show you what I have and then we’ll figure out a price for however much you need or can pay for. You do have some coin on you don’t you, boy? I’m not much into the charity business you know.”

  “I have some coin, sir,” Azerick replied, “so if you’ll be so kind to show me what you have I would be most grateful,” Azerick assured the grizzled storeowner.

  As the old sailor made his way from behind the counter and over to the large spools of rope that hung on the far wall. Azerick understood how he got the name of Peg. His right leg was missing from the knee down and a length of round timber replaced it. He followed the clumping steps of the storeowner across the shop to the displays of rope.

  “Here you have your regular hemp rope. It’s cheap, heavy, and of general-purpose use. I also have hemp treated with oil and tar. It’s the same as the other but less prone to rot in the seas and moist air. Horse hair is lighter than hemp and less prone to rotting than your regular hemp, but it costs more than even the treated hemp and is limited in the length you can make it.” The old salt next showed him a smooth, slender rope. “Now this here rope is rough-spun silk. This is what you want if you can afford it. It’s light, strong, won’t rot, or stretch when it gets wet, and it costs more than pretty copper or two, but it’s what you want if you’re lugging several dozen yards of rope and tools across the rooftops all day.”

  “How much does it cost, Master Peg?”

  “Buttering me up with fancy titles won’t get you in my good graces, lad, and it won’t make me anymo
re charitable in my price. It’s two swords a foot, and that’s a firm price.”

  Azerick looked downcast. He loved the look and feel of the rope and any weight he could cut down on in the equipment he carried meant the more he could pack out of the manor.

  “Please, sir, I must have that rope or the master won’t take me as his apprentice, and I need the training and the work,” Azerick pleaded giving the storeowner the sorriest waif eyes that he could manage.

  Unfortunately, the old sailor was unmoved. “Times are tough all around, son, and it would be even tougher if I went and gave out my merchandise to everyone with a sad tale. You said you were a sailing lad once. Why not go back out to sea? It’s an honorable profession. Who did you sail with before?”

  Azerick thought a moment, pondering whether he should use his father’s name. He knew his father was a well-liked and respected captain, but that was before the false charge of high treason against the crown. He rolled the dice and took a chance on his father’s name.

  “It was with Captain Darius Giles, sir, a good man and, no matter what anyone says, he would never betray the crown. He was an honest and loyal man,” Azerick said with feeling.

  “Aye, that he was, lad. I knew him well. I even sailed with him a bit before I retired from the open ocean. He even gave me the loan to start this store and only charged a pittance in interest just to make it legit. I don’t remember any lads as young as you would ‘a been on any of his boats even as a cabin boy. What was he to you that make you speak of him with such devotion?”

  “I’m his son, sir, and I did sail with him from time to time before,” he swallowed hard at the memory, “before he was murdered and they took everything my mother and I had and threw us out on the street.”